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    A hybrid MBE-based growth method for large-area synthesis of stacked hexagonal boron nitride/graphene heterostructures
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Wofford, Joseph M.; Nakhaie, Siamak; Krause, Thilo; Liu, Xianjie; Ramsteiner, Manfred; Hanke, Michael; Riechert, Henning; Lopes, J.; Marcelo, J.
    Van der Waals heterostructures combining hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and graphene offer many potential advantages, but remain difficult to produce as continuous films over large areas. In particular, the growth of h-BN on graphene has proven to be challenging due to the inertness of the graphene surface. Here we exploit a scalable molecular beam epitaxy based method to allow both the h-BN and graphene to form in a stacked heterostructure in the favorable growth environment provided by a Ni(111) substrate. This involves first saturating a Ni film on MgO(111) with C, growing h-BN on the exposed metal surface, and precipitating the C back to the h-BN/Ni interface to form graphene. The resulting laterally continuous heterostructure is composed of a top layer of few-layer thick h-BN on an intermediate few-layer thick graphene, lying on top of Ni/MgO(111). Examinations by synchrotron-based grazing incidence diffraction, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and UV-Raman spectroscopy reveal that while the h-BN is relaxed, the lattice constant of graphene is significantly reduced, likely due to nitrogen doping. These results illustrate a different pathway for the production of h-BN/graphene heterostructures, and open a new perspective for the large-area preparation of heterosystems combining graphene and other 2D or 3D materials.
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    Synthesis of quasi-free-standing bilayer graphene nanoribbons on SiC surfaces
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2015) Oliveira, Myriano H., Jr.; Lopes, Joao Marcelo J.; Schumann, Timo; Galves, Lauren A.; Ramsteiner, Manfred; Berlin, Katja; Trampert, Achim; Riechert, Henning
    Scaling graphene down to nanoribbons is a promising route for the implementation of this material into devices. Quantum confinement of charge carriers in such nanostructures, combined with the electric field-induced break of symmetry in AB-stacked bilayer graphene, leads to a band gap wider than that obtained solely by this symmetry breaking. Consequently, the possibility of fabricating AB-stacked bilayer graphene nanoribbons with high precision is very attractive for the purposes of applied and basic science. Here we show a method, which includes a straightforward air annealing, for the preparation of quasi-free-standing AB-bilayer nanoribbons with different widths on SiC(0001). Furthermore, the experiments reveal that the degree of disorder at the edges increases with the width, indicating that the narrower nanoribbons are more ordered in their edge termination. In general, the reported approach is a viable route towards the large-scale fabrication of bilayer graphene nanostructures with tailored dimensions and properties for specific applications.